Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary System Management Strategy ...

EPA Report on the Peel-Harvey Progress and Compliance Report, 2003
• The EPA has a function in relation to the environmental performance of natural
resource management agencies;
• The Department of Agriculture has indicated it is adopting a framework for
Environmentally Responsible Agriculture which will lead to minimum acceptable
management practices and ultimately development of “best management practices”
to take proper regard for environmental protection during agricultural production;
• There is a growing acceptance of the proposition that all tiers of government,
community, industry and agriculture, cooperatively need to design and monitor
action plans to implement the standards, processes and techniques for improved
natural resource management of land and water ecosystems;
• There is a growing acceptance of the need to incorporate an environmental “duty of
care” for all land use and management (see Industry Commission 1998 report “A
Full Repairing Lease”);
• The Peel-Harvey Catchment Council has been formed, as a sub-region of the South
West Catchment Council; and
• The State Government has appointed a Natural Resource Management Council.
Although none of the above will lead miraculously to the plan envisaged by the EPA, the
points do suggest that change is occurring and that the social aspects of catchment
management planning may have changed in the time since it was first proposed by the
EPA in 1985. Thus the feasibility of achieving a competent catchment management plan
and an implementation strategy may now be greater.
The EPA intends to use the Peel-Harvey coastal catchment as a model for the
development of a catchment management plan and an implementation framework. This
issue is addressed further in Section 10 of this EPA report.
The Peel-Harvey System is important to the people of Western Australia, and the EPA
looks forward to significant progress within the next two years on both a catchment
management plan and an implementation strategy.
EPA Advice/Comment - 3
A Catchment Management Plan and an Implementation Strategy need to be
prepared as a matter of urgency with the objective of reducing the run-off of
nutrients into the rivers pursuant to the Environmental Protection Policy.
EPA Advice/Comment - 4
The comprehensive integrated catchment management plan needs to include the
development and introduction of Minimum Acceptable Management Practices
(MAMP’s) into rural and farming activities with high potential for risk to the
environment as well as improving the condition of riparian vegetation.
The term “acceptable” relates to environmental acceptability and prevention of land
degradation and environmental harm both on and off site.
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